In the Catbird Seat

One of Life’s Pleasures

View from the Catbird Seat ♦ 2D

(Click to Enlarge)

The gray catbird, Dumetella carolinensis

In the Catbird Seat. Yes, the catbird does exist but this time we are referring to ‘the catbird seat’ as an American English idiomatic expression used to describe an enviable position, often in terms of having the upper hand in all types of dealings among parties.

Catbird seat far right

According to Wikipedia—that mine of knowledge one should always take with a catbird of rock salt— and quoting the Oxford English Dictionary, “first recorded usage occurred in a 1942 humorous short story by James Thurbertitled ‘The Catbird Seat,’ which features a character, Mrs. Barrows, who likes to use the phrase. Another character, Joey Hart, explains that Mrs. Barrows must have picked up the expression from Red Barber, a baseball broadcaster, and that to Barber ‘sitting in the catbird seat’ meant ‘sitting pretty,’ like a batter with three balls and no strikes on him.”

Additional 2D Views

Trek date: 2013 Sep 26

WANDERERS AND WAYFARERSlong for a place to relax from life’s bustle, where they can kick back and enjoy the view. Bucko and I found such a spot. Easy to get to, it took only a few minutes legwork (and some minor huffing and puffing) for we two lazy bozos to work our way up through granite boulders and cacti and needle-sharp Mojave yuccas to about 125 feet above the gently rolling Far East plain. At Joshua Tree as elsewhere in the world, the higher you go the more you see. Once arrived, we found ourselves in a perfect area to recline & take photographs.

Mr Barrel’s view to die for

Mr Bucko takin’ it easy

On the way there, we encountered this patriarch of a red barrel. Always polite about things, we humbly beseeched its permission and it consented to allow us some photographs without payment or spiny retribution for imposing on its privacy.